Many search engines are configured to recommend products or services to a user based on a query submitted by a user. For example, a user may submit the query “digital camera” to the search engine, and may be presented with links to reviews of digital cameras and/or links to websites where the user may purchase the digital camera. These links may be sponsored and/or non-sponsored.
In the above example, recommending digital cameras to the user based on the query is relatively simple because the commercial intent of the query “digital camera” is apparent based on the query itself. In contrast, for some queries, determining a possible commercial intent from the query may be more difficult. For example, consider the query “Mayan Riviera”. The query does not have an immediately recognizable commercial intent like “digital camera”, but may instead be related to an information gathering session for the user related to an upcoming vacation. Thus, appropriate product recommendations may be for sun block, beach shoes, sunglasses, or other vacation related items. However, because the commercial intent of the query is not easily discernable based on the terms of the query, the products are not recommended to the user, resulting in potential loss or revenue and a degraded search experience for the user.